1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electron microscopes, and more particularly, to an ultra-thin liquid control plate, which keeps an ultra-thin liquid layer in an electron microscope, and a combination of a box-like member and the control plate.
2. Description of the Related Art
According to the prior art, while an electron microscope is operated for observation of an object, the object under observation must be nonvolatile to allow observation of itself because of the limitation of the vacuum environment of a specimen chamber inside the electron microscope. For example, if a liquid or gasiform fluid matter is put into the vacuum specimen chamber, a great amount of gas will be produced to not only disable the penetration of the electron beam through the object for diffraction or imaging experiment but also to influence the vacuum of high-vacuum area, like electron gun of the electron microscope, or incur contamination inside the high-vacuum area to further damage the electron microscope.
Although some people proposed an environment inside the electron microscope for observation of liquid or gas, such as Gai P. L. (Gai P. L., Microscopy & Microanalysis 8, 21, 2002). However, the specimen chamber is subject to the failure of the effective control of the amount of infused liquid. Too much liquid is introduced such that the liquid is too thick to enable the electron beam to penetrate the specimen. In addition, the gas chamber covers the whole space between the upper and lower pole pieces, such that multiple scattering generated by that the electron impinges excessive gas molecules is very serious to disable the electron beam for successful imaging and experiment of electron diffraction. Moreover, such design still has to dismantle the primary part of the microscope first and then install the components into the microscope, such that such design is unlikely for mass production.
As far as I know, there is still nobody who develops any environment that the liquid or an object in the liquid, like live cell, can be clearly observed under the electron microscope.
Now, a solution to the above problem is concluded because I develop an environment for clear observation of the liquid specimen under the microscope. During the operation, it is found that the thickness of the liquid specimen and that of the ambient gas layer must keep ultra-thin. In light of this, the present invention discloses an ultra-thin liquid control plate and a combination of the control plate and a box-like member, in which a liquid layer keeping ultra-thin is formed for receiving solid solutes or live cells and for cooperation with observation under the electron microscope, wherein the liquid layer can be a liquid specimen.